Long Road To Ruin
by NotAThatGoodAWriter
Summary: {Hayniss} Katniss & Peeta aren't the people they used to be. Their relationship is a strain, and as the years progress its foundation of debt wears away at Katniss. And the only person who understands it, who ever understood any of it, is her former mentor. But the comfort they provide each other is not the kind of comfort that her husband wants her seeking from anyone but him.


The crisp autumn air rushes coolly past my ears, carrying the faint echo of umber leaves that crunch underfoot as I walk up the path toward my house. _Our _house. My jacket, the old brown leather warm and familiar as it wraps around me, bundling me up against the brittle air around me. Fingers curl around the cool metal of the doorknob as open the door, stepping through into the little cloud of warmth that comes from the house. It's always warm. Peeta likes it. I do to, but sometimes the stuffiness of it creeps over me with the constant nerving presence of my husband's teetering stability and I have to escape elsewhere. Though not always to the cool and calm of the woods; the rooms in the other house are often seeping with brisk drafts, curling curtains with the breeze from doors ajar and poorly repaired windows.

As I step through the smell hits me immediately: the heavy perfume of oil paints that weighs upon the air as I move through the hall. I'm sure it adds to the warmth of the air, it's familiar smell that I've come to associate with home and with him. With quiet steps I move toward the door of the back room where the faint scratches of worn brushes against canvas can be dimly heard, hovering in the doorway as I watch the movements of his hand let the brush flow delicately over the painting of a bunch of flowers that sit in a vase before him on the dining table. It hardly looks like he's touching the pristine canvas with his light strokes. There's a pointed look of concentration on his face, but it melts from his features and the corners of his lips turn up into a sweetened smile as he notices I'm there. "Hey" he says warmly as he sets down his implements and stands, I feel obliged to mimic his easy movements as he starts walking towards me, baggy shirt flecked with paint and arms out wide to welcome me. "Good hunt?" he asks and any recognition of my lack of game is buried completely by his innocent tone. He is innocent. Innocent and kind and sweet and pure. And he tries, he tries to hold my interest and tries to make our lives bearable with each other. But I see him when he can't look at me with his muscles strained and teeth clenched as his fists bunched. I feel him when he thinks I'm still asleep and his body lurches forward in the bed beside me with a scream restrained in his throat for fear he'll wake me. I hear it in the way he snaps at me in the slightest of words when I'm pushing for any sort of acceptance that I am the dreadful remains of a person he once loved that he refuses to acknowledge. And all of it comes crashing into my brain at once when he puts his arms around me. As strong and secure as they ever were, and it's a reflex now to return the hold, no matter how much softer my own arms are compared to his. "No, nothing really" I mumble over his shoulder and hope it's enough to hold down the lie. I prepare the image in my mind of the woods damp and patterned with cold sunlight through the canopy and my arrow firing and barely scathing a small deer. It's blurred and marred with my own lie but it's enough to steady me in his arms and the calmness of his body is all I need to accept that it worked. Now all I can hope is that he doesn't smell the bitterness on my clothes that doesn't come from the kind of dirt you pick up in the woods. And when he moves back with a small smile I know his head is about to move closer to mine and I duck out of his arms, "It's beautiful" the words are quick to leave my lips and fight the fever that brews in my throat as I stand and admire the painting with half glazed eyes. I don't care about the flowers in the picture, I care that if I let him kiss me he'll taste the burning liquor on my lips left there by the person whose hand comes to mind when I feel Peeta's on my shoulder as he comes to stand behind me.


End file.
